Néstor Almendros Biography

Spanish cinematographer Néstor Almendros (1930–1992) won
an Academy Award for his work in creating the breathtaking vistas of
land and sky meant to depict Texas around 1900 in the movie
Days of Heaven
. But Almendros was equally proud of the work he did for such
acclaimed French directors as François Truffaut and Éric
Rohmer when they were at the peak of their careers, and also made two
documentary films about human rights abuses in Cuba. A three-time
political refugee during his lifetime, "Almendros …
realized that sorrow, pain, and sometimes evil lurk just beneath the
surface of the finest, most evenly illuminated compositions,"
noted the
International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
.

Almendros was born in Barcelona, Spain, on October 30, 1930, and was one
of three children in his family. His father was a Republican Loyalist and
during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) he fought against
the fascist forces of General Francisco Franco (1892–1975). The
Republican Loyalists were fighting to preserve the Second Spanish Republic
and its progressive liberal ideals, but Franco's side triumphed in
the end. It was a brutal and bloody war, and there were repercussions for
years to come for the Loyalists; because of this, Almendros's
father was forced into exile and fled to Cuba.

Roman Exile

Almendros and his family joined their father in Cuba in 1948. Young
Almendros earned a doctorate from the University of Havana, and then fled
a Cuban regime headed by General Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973),
which began cracking down on University of Havana student protests in 1955
with the use of military force. He settled in Rome, where he enrolled in
film school at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. A friend of his
from Havana, a law student and future filmmaker two years his senior named
Tomas Gutiérrez Alea (1928–1996), had already graduated from
the school. In 1950 the pair made an eight-millimeter film together,
Una confusion contidiana
(A Common Confusion), which was Almendros's first foray into the
art form.

Settling in New York City after his stint in Italy, Almendros took classes
at the City College of New York, and taught Spanish at nearby Vassar
College, a private school in the Hudson River valley town of Poughkeepsie.
Enthused by the promise of a socialist revolution back in Cuba that ousted
Batista, Almendros returned to Havana and became an early supporter of
Fidel Castro (born 1926), who came to power in early 1959. For the next
two years Almendros worked for a filmmaking collective co-founded by Alea,
making documentary films about the sweeping political changes taking place
during this period. Like other progressive-minded young filmmakers at the
collective, he was fascinated by fresh ideas coming out of post-World War
II Europe, especially French New Wave cinema. Franç Truffaut
(1932–1984) was among the pioneers of this movement, which featured
realistic portrayals of current social and political issues as well as
experimentation on several technical levels, such as lighting, camera
angles, and editing.

Almendros was asked to weigh in on a top ten list of the best films of
1959, and included Truffaut's
The 400 Blows
, the tale of a disenchanted Parisian teen that would become an enormous
influence on a generation of filmmakers to follow. On his list, Almendros
chose this over a release from the Soviet Union,
Ballad of a Soldier
, that Castro preferred. His preference for one of the decadent
West's products over a tautly constructed socialist fable was the
beginning of the end for Almendros's career in Cuba. Once again he
fled, but this time chose France because it was home to the filmmakers of
the New Wave. He brought with him a single print of a short film he had
made.

Parisian Exile

Almendros struggled to find work, and was hampered by the lack of an
official work permit. In what has become a classic documentary film from
this era, 1964's
Paris vu Par
… (Paris Seen By …), his work as the cinematographer for
two segments went uncredited. One of these was the "Place de
l'Étoile" contribution from Éric Rohmer, and
that job began a long and productive working relationship between
Almendros and Rohmer (born 1920).

Rohmer hired Almendros as cinematographer for
La Collectionneuse
(The Collector), a 1967 release that became the first feature film credit
for Almendros's resume. It was followed by another Rohmer project,
Ma nuit chez Maud
(My Night at Maud's), released two years later and a hit on the
international film festival circuit. Almendros was also the
cinematographer for Rohmer's
Le Genou de Claire
(Claire's Knee), a 1970 release that scored similarly high marks
with critics. At that time, Almendros spoke with Vincent Canby of the
New York Times
, telling the journalist that he preferred working with Rohmer and other
visionaries who shared the same views about the art of filmmaking.
"When I started, I found that my job consisted principally in
de-lighting sets, that is, removing all the fake, conventional movie
lighting that had been set up by lighting technicians," he
recalled. "They were old-fashioned. They believed in a very glossy
kind of photography, that faces should never been in shadow, that there
should always be a lot of backlighting, with no shadows in the sets
anywhere."

Almendros worked with several other directors of the French New Wave as
they progressed to more mainstream, but nonetheless impressive, projects.
His cinematography for Truffaut began in 1969 with
L'Enfant sauvage
(The Wild Child), and included
L'Histoire d'Adèle H.
(The Story of Adèle H.), a 1975 period piece that starred Isabelle
Adjani,
L'Homme qui aimait les femmes
(The Man Who Loved Women), a 1977 comedy about a womanizer that was later
remade in Hollywood, and
Le Dernier Métro
, (The Last Metro), a World War II drama that starred Catherine Deneuve.
This movie won a slew of awards at the 1981 Césars, French
cinema's equivalent of the Academy Awards, including that of Best
Cinematographer for Almendros.

Almendros had already won an Academy Award statuette by this time for
Days of Heaven
, a 1978 drama set in the Texas Panhandle as the nineteenth century turned
into the twentieth. Directed by a maverick young filmmaker named Terrence
Malick, the movie starred Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, and Sam Shepard in a
romantic triangle tied to a real estate scam. Many years later, a
Times
of London contributor asserted that Almendros's "nakedly
realistic treatment of the endless vistas of wheatfields, where young
immigrants seek a new life after leaving Chicago in the early years of the
century, created a vividly realised atmosphere, which more than
compensated for the sometimes too-symbolic intentions of the
script."

Shot Oscar-Winning Hollywood Projects

Days of Heaven
began a productive period in Almendros's career, one which kept
him moving around the world working for various directors. His next major
job was for director Robert Benton on the multiple Oscar-winning
Kramer vs. Kramer
. The 1979 drama, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep as a
divorcing Manhattan couple battling over legal custody of their child, was
nominated for
nine Academy Awards, including best cinematography, but Almendros missed
out that year. The film won the Best Picture award, however, with Canby
describing it as "densely packed with … beautifully observed
detail." Canby went on to praise Almendros as
"gifted," concluding that "the Manhattan he shows us
is familiar enough but we see a lot more than a series of pretty
surfaces."

Almendros would work with Benton again on several other films, and also
had a productive working relationship with Barbet Schroeder, who served as
producer of some of the earliest New Wave movies and went on to a career
as director of several major Hollywood films. Other notable projects for
Almendros over the years included
Goin' South
, a 1977 Western that starred and was directed by Jack Nicholson;
The Blue Lagoon
, an ill-fated 1980 movie that featured Brooke Shields, a major teen star
at the time; and
Sophie's Choice
, the 1982 adaptation of a William Styron novel that won Streep her first
Oscar for a lead role.

Almendros recounted these and dozens of other experiences in a book that
appeared in English translation in 1984 as
A Man With a Camera
. Part memoir, part textbook, the tome featured Almendros's
behind-the-scenes tales of classics and box-office duds alike, and became
standard reading for graduate film students for its eloquent writing on
technical issues. Reviewing it for the
New York Times
, Gerald Mast commended the author for explaining to readers the reasons
behind "the power of the most basic element of the
cinema—light—essential for both film making and projection
but so often taken for granted."

Chronicled Cuban Crimes

Almendros finally returned to directing his own films in 1984 with
Mauvaise conduite
(Improper Conduct), a documentary about life in Castro's Cuba that
was released in the United States as
Improper Conduct
. He served as codirector with Orlando Jimenez-Leal, a Cuban
émigré filmmaker, and it would be Almendros's first
full-length documentary film as a director. The movie's title is
taken from the charges leveled against certain segments of the Cuban
population whose personal beliefs put them at odds with the goals of the
1959 revolution. These included gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses,
and a critique of the film by John Simon in the
National Review
hinted that Almendros's reason for leaving Cuba back in 1961 may
have been linked to more than just the year's top ten films
list—Simon described Almendros as "the great cinematographer
… whose concern with homosexuality is not just academic."
Giving
Improper Conduct
high marks, Simon wrote approvingly of the way it used "official
Cuban footage, especially a long interview in which Castro discourses on
the perfect freedom and justice of his state, which would have seemed
specious even out of context, but which here becomes a masterpiece of the
preposterous and demonstrates the almost physical, aesthetic ugliness of
mendacity even beyond its moral canker."

In 1988 Almendros made his second documentary film about Cuba,
Nadie escuchaba
(Nobody Listened). Again, he collaborated with another Cuban exile, this
time journalist Jorge Ulla, and the film featured the first-person
accounts of dissidents who had managed to flee Cuba after stints in prison
where many had survived bestial conditions and even torture.
"Making no attempt to give equal time to pro-Castro partisans, the
filmmakers allow the sheer weight of testimony here to speak for
itself," wrote Janet Maslin in the
New York Times
. "'Nobody Listened' is an urgent and painful litany,
measured in its tone but passionately intent on making its point."
Almendros confessed that he had to finance
Nobody Listened
on his own, and nearly went broke doing so. Yet as he explained to
another
New York Times
writer, Lawrence Van Gelder, "I've made 47 movies and
I've got several awards, and there's a moment when you think
you owe something to society. I have access to camera and film, and I know
how. The Cuban case is too scandalous not to talk about."

The 1991 film from Robert Benton,
Billy Bathgate
, was Almendros's last job as a cinematographer. He died of
lymphoma on March 4, 1992, in New York City.

Books

International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers
, Volume 4:
Writers and Production Artists
, 4th edition, St. James Press, 2000.

Periodicals

National Review
, September 7, 1984.

New York Times
, September 24, 1969; February 22, 1971; February 28, 1971; December 19,
1979; August 10, 1980; September 30, 1984; December 2, 1988.

Sunday Times
(London, England), August 11, 1985.

Times
(London, England), May 20, 1976; March 6, 1992.

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